5 minute read
Biosecurity Watch - Sophie Badland
Biosecurity Watch
Go hard, go early – Covid and the New Zealand Biosecurity System
SOPHIE BADLAND
IN THE past year, biosecurity has been well and truly thrust into the global spotlight with the rapid worldwide spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the respiratory disease commonly known as Covid-19.
At the time of writing this column, there had been 95.2 million reported cases worldwide, and more than two million deaths. While in New Zealand we are somewhat fortunate to so far have avoided a mass outbreak of the kind that overwhelms hospitals and medical centres, most other countries have not been so lucky and life in those places is very different now to what it was even a year ago. Compulsory mask-wearing, social distancing, multiple lockdowns, travel bans and disruptions, mandatory isolation and seeing friends and family not in person, but via a computer screen, are all becoming a normal part of life frighteningly quickly.
New Zealand’s Covid-19 situation to date somewhat parallels our biosecurity system, which is widely recognised as being world-class. The system is designed to be a net, not a wall. As good as the system is, the sheer volume of people and goods usually arriving on our shores from all over the world means inevitably some pests and diseases will slip through - as Covid-19 did. Although we all knew it was coming, there was not a lot of time to undertake readiness planning, and it took some time before the New Zealand Government was able to gain reasonable control of the situation.
Initially once a detection occurred, the patient was isolated and restrictions placed on their movement and others close to them were tested and also isolated. Anyone elsewhere in the country experiencing symptoms, or who had been in contact with the confirmed cases, were urged to go and get tested. When community transmission of Covid became apparent, it was realised that these measures were not enough to eradicate the disease or even prevent it spreading further. As a result, strict restrictions and testing were put into place at the border, and the Alert Level system was introduced, resulting relatively quickly in a nationwide lockdown.
The current measures for Covid more closely resemble the way the New Zealand biosecurity system usually functions. Before coming into New Zealand, people must now complete pre-border checks – Covid tests, supply the appropriate documentation, and make arrangements for a place in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ). The biosecurity system also requires pre-border documentation, manifests, declarations, phytosanitary certifications, and sometimes treatment or testing of goods prior to import or arrival.
In the normal course of events, much biosecurity verification, inspection, testing and treatment occurs at the border. Quarantine officers screen and inspect risk goods declared by travellers and importers, a shipping container hygiene system is in place, aircraft must have a current disinsection certification and detector dogs and x-rays are used to detect risk items that have not been declared
IF YOU SEE ANYTHING UNUSUAL CATCH IT. SNAP IT. REPORT IT.
Call MPI biosecurity hotline 0800 80 99 66
Photo by Peter Burge
(intentionally or not). All imported goods, plant material and animals are, upon arrival, sent directly to approved transitional or containment facilities, where inspection and verification of treatment or testing can be carried out. These facilities must have operators and approved people trained in biosecurity, and they are audited regularly. This is very similar to the on-arrival testing and direction to MIQ facilities for travellers currently arriving into New Zealand.
The mantra of ‘go hard, go early’ we have all become familiar with thanks to Covid is also applied to incursions of high-risk organisms post-border. Biosecurity New Zealand’s response team can be operational extremely quickly (within 24 to 48 hours of a detection), particularly in situations where readiness planning has already been done or a successful response to the unwanted organism has been achieved previously (for example, Queensland fruit fly). A biosecurity response generally requires the fast and efficient co-ordination of many people and resources in an effort to stamp out or eradicate the unwanted pest or disease and is most often only possible when pest population or disease levels are low, affecting few individuals or sites. While this can be expensive and time-consuming, allowing the pest or disease to multiply to a level where it becomes widespread and requires ongoing management generally proves more expensive and time consuming, hence the ‘go hard, go early’ approach to incursion. Again, we are now seeing this approach extended to Covid-19; as soon as community transmission appeared again in Auckland in mid-2020, an Alert Level 3 lockdown was put in place to allow tracing to occur, while preventing further spread.
If New Zealand’s Covid-19 experience has highlighted anything, it is that the importance of having good biosecurity systems and plans in place pre-border, at the border, and post-border cannot be underestimated. As we watch other countries yo-yo in and out of lockdowns, and see families separated, businesses failing, job losses soaring and mask-wearing and social distancing becoming the norm around the world, it is hard not to feel huge pride in what our country has been able to achieve to date. The lessons every single one of us have learned from the Covid experience can (and should) be applied to other unwanted pests and diseases, which can also have devastating consequences for those people, businesses and industries affected by them.
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